Uppercut Games unveils City of Brass

Australien studio Uppercut Games, comprised of some former Irrational Games developers, revealed yesterday City of Brass, an Arabian Nights-themed FPS with procedurally generated quests. The title is also described as "rogue-lite" as in it features permadeath. Armed with a scimitar and a whip, you can collect treasures, get a powerful benefit from one of your three wishes, use modifiers (called Divine Burdens) and more. Trailers, screenshots and details inside. The title will hit PC this Fall, console versions will follow in 2018.

Become a daring thief in a punishing, procedurally generated quest filled with treasure, traps and ghoulish foes. Armed with scimitar and a versatile whip, players must lash and slash, trick and trap their way to the heart of an opulent, ancient metropolis before the sands of time run out.

Canberra, 6th July 2017: Leaping from the pages of the Arabian Nights, adventure awaits in the accursed City of Brass – a place of legend beneath the sand, filled with danger and reward. Infested with mischievous spirits and deadly traps, its shifting streets are brimming with the wealth of a nation.

Players assume the role of a cunning thief, battling to reach a fabled treasure at the city’s heart, wielding a blade and whip that can be used to disarm, trip or stun enemies, to swing to safety, grab inaccessible objects or even break through flimsy barricades. But the city itself also has teeth. Players have to leap across pits, slide under blades, dodge spears or arrows, evade or employ sprung paving slabs, and sidestep poison gas traps – all the while manipulating these hazards to their advantage against diverse supernatural foes.

City of Brass has eternal replayability, designed to encourage combinative gameplay within an ever-changing, carefully optimized cityscape. Gamers must learn to manipulate every system if they are to survive, moving swiftly and deftly through each level, balancing the need for loot with the absolute requirement to escape within the time limit.

“Developing a game with multiple, interacting systems that players can freely combine feels like a return to our roots, drawing on our experiences working on BioShock and many of our other favorites,” explained Ed Orman, Lead Designer. “Players must learn how to use the traps to kill their foes, and even turn enemies against each another. You’ll perish in the City of Brass – often, and quite horribly – but as your skills improve and you discover new ways to cheat death, you’ll return to fight another day.”

Game features include:

• Collect treasure to increase your score, plunder chests for weapon and armor upgrades or powerful relics – but make it to the exit in time or face death by dervish…
• Incarcerated within the city, and most are friendly… Some will barter gear, upgrades, secrets, unlocks or protections in return for loot. Use one of three wishes to unlock a powerful benefit, or for a king’s ransom, buy a genie’s freedom in return for help in the final battle.
• When your sword just isn’t enough, get creative: smash your enemies with explosive vases, blind them with a brick to the face, or force them into traps.
• The city is filled with wretched spirits of all flavors, all with unique behaviors, all with the singular character defect that they want to kill you.
• The algorithms that create each level are tweaked to generate a logically laid out cityscape of interconnected chambers, courtyards and corridors.
• The rhythmic interplay of blade and lash has been carefully tuned along with sprinting, crouching, sliding, leaping and vaulting to give a fluid, balanced and natural feel to the movement and melee.
• For the ultimate test, experienced players can encumber themselves with Divine Burdens, global modifiers that change enemy abilities, spawn behaviors or multiply environmental hazards.
• No two playthroughs are ever the same: play, die, and play again, each time using what you’ve learned to get further. Are you tenacious enough to reach the heart of the City of Brass?

City of Brass will be released for Windows PC on Steam in fall 2017, with versions for PlayStation® 4 systems and Xbox One following in 2018.

All comments

I had watched this trailer today, as I wasn't sure you guys would post it. Looks like Prince of Persia meets BioShock, which is very cool. It also made me realize how little FPS games we have in different settings other than Modern, Military, Futuristic, Sci-Fi, Post-Apocalyptic, Horror, etc.

I love how when he whipped the weapon out of the enemy's hand, the enemy looked at its hand and then back at you astonished. And the platforming looks really nice as well, hopefully it has a lot of depth to it. Kinda like a semi-Mirror's Edge platforming system and level design. Definitely on my radar.

Not exactly. I'm talking about less explored or exotic settings, like Arabian Nights, Medieval Japan/China, Medieval Fantasy, etc. Hell, even Medieval Europe and Wild West don't have that many FPS games.

For Medieval Europe I can only remember Chivalry and Kingdom Come right now. As for Western, only the Call of Juarez games come to mind at the moment. Though for those other settings, I could name 10 of each category at the top of my head. And I believe you and anyone else could too.

Posted by SdartsNot exactly. I'm talking about less explored or exotic settings, like Arabian Nights, Medieval Japan/China, Medieval Fantasy, etc. Hell, even Medieval Europe and Wild West don't have that many FPS games.

For Medieval Europe I can only remember Chivalry and Kingdom Come right now. As for Western, only the Call of Juarez games come to mind at the moment. Though for those other settings, I could name 10 of each category at the top of my head. And I believe you and anyone else could too.

i'm honestly not even sure i'd say this was an FPS. unless you consider things like dishonored FPS's too i guess?

Posted by KORNdogi'm honestly not even sure i'd say this was an FPS. unless you consider things like dishonored FPS's too i guess?

I meant it as more setting variety for First-Person Shooter games. Though the problem with that is that if you exclude all games that don't center around firearms, then by default games set in periods where firearms didn't exist or were extremely rare aren't FPS. Even if the game design and gameplay systems are based or extremely similar to that of a FPS game.

As for Dishonored, you have a pistol and some powers with which you can "shoot" enemies, which you could technically call a FPS. However, I would call Dishonored a "First-Person Action" game. While City of Brass could fit into that category, it might be better categorized as a "First-Person Melee" game, like Chivalry: Medieval Warfare and Kingdom Come: Deliverance.

Like many people in the gaming press have said over the years, genres in games are so blurred nowadays because so many games are a mix of many genres that you can categorize them by some ten or so categories and they all would still fit.

It's all of those genres and maybe more, since I'm sure I'm forgetting some other genres it also dabbles into. Makes me remember all the discussions about games' genres in podcasts, articles and forums, it's very abstract in many cases.

Wikipedia - Video game genre:

"A video game genre is a classification assigned to a video game based on its gameplay interaction rather than visual or narrative differences. A video game genre is defined by a set of gameplay challenges and are classified independently of their setting or game-world content, unlike other works of fiction such as films or books. For example, a shooter game is still a shooter game, regardless of where it takes place.

As with nearly all varieties of genre classification, the matter of any individual video game's specific genre is open to personal interpretation. Moreover, each individual game may belong to several genres at once."

Posted by SdartsI meant it as more setting variety for First-Person Shooter games. Though the problem with that is that if you exclude all games that don't center around firearms, then by default games set in periods where firearms didn't exist or were extremely rare aren't FPS. Even if the game design and gameplay systems are based or extremely similar to that of a FPS game.

As for Dishonored, you have a pistol and some powers with which you can "shoot" enemies, which you could technically call a FPS. However, I would call Dishonored a "First-Person Action" game. While City of Brass could fit into that category, it might be better categorized as a "First-Person Melee" game, like Chivalry: Medieval Warfare and Kingdom Come: Deliverance.

Like many people in the gaming press have said over the years, genres in games are so blurred nowadays because so many games are a mix of many genres that you can categorize them by some ten or so categories and they all would still fit.

It's all of those genres and maybe more, since I'm sure I'm forgetting some other genres it also dabbles into. Makes me remember all the discussions about games' genres in podcasts, articles and forums, it's very abstract in many cases.

Wikipedia - Video game genre:

"A video game genre is a classification assigned to a video game based on its gameplay interaction rather than visual or narrative differences. A video game genre is defined by a set of gameplay challenges and are classified independently of their setting or game-world content, unlike other works of fiction such as films or books. For example, a shooter game is still a shooter game, regardless of where it takes place.

As with nearly all varieties of genre classification, the matter of any individual video game's specific genre is open to personal interpretation. Moreover, each individual game may belong to several genres at once."

i think to be considered an FPS you need to be predominantly shooting, not necessarily firearms, but some sort of projectile. it's why you will rarely see real FPS's set in specific historical time periods. unless they are alternate history (steam punk etc)

either way this looks pretty low budget and i can't say the trailer did much to convince me it's anything other than a low budget title.